Making the Case for the Health Benefits of Beer

First wine went from dietary taboo to something similar, in small doses, to medicine.

Now it may be beer’s turn.

At a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) today in San Diego, Kristopher Waynant, Ph.D., an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Idaho, presented work showing that he and undergraduate student Lucas Sass are close to synthesizing acids in hops, which are strongly linked to anticancer properties.

The hops are what make beer taste like beer, and they have long been known to inhibit bacteria growth as the brew ferments.

Acids in the hops, called humulones and lupulones, have been shown to kill cancer cells and block leukemia cells from clinging to bone in petri dish experiments. They may also act as anti-inflammatory agents.

Synthesizing the acids is an important step in documenting any health effects so researchers can be sure their ingredients are pure.

Scientists have successfully synthesized one type of humulone, and Wyanant and Sass are now close to synthesizing two others.

“We believe we have a rapid and efficient route to get there,” Waynant told Healthline.

Some of the existing research on beer’s health benefits don’t define clearly enough which element of hops drives their effects, according to Waynant.

“The first few studies of biological activity were of hop extracts and alpha or beta acid extracts respectively,” he said.

Don’t Get Your Hops Up

Waynant still cautioned against using health as a justification for drinking more beer.

“We certainly don’t think that beer should be viewed as a medicine,” he said. “We are of the impression that many pharmaceuticals are derived or originate from nature and that perhaps there is a derivative in our synthetic routes that will also be active or more active.”

With alcohol, a little bit may be a good thing, but too much can be an express ticket to many major chronic diseases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that moderate alcohol consumption saved the lives of some people who would otherwise have died from heart disease, stroke, or diabetes. To count as moderate drinkers, women get just one drink a day, and men get two.

“Being able to synthesize and have available precise analytical standards of these molecules would be beneficial to both brewers and medicinal biologists as reference materials,” Waynant said of the hops acids his work focuses on.